The City Council resumed its discussion on how to improve the western portion of Eisenhower/US 34. On February 16, the Council talked about the need to incentivize redevelopment and business reinvestment on properties along the west Eisenhower Boulevard corridor. The discussion focused on providing some level of relief from compliance with development regulations that may be preventing private sector development and/or redevelopment.
Council had requested staff to bring a list of options for regulatory relief for the corridor. On May 10th, the Council reviewed the options and decided to focus on the section between Taft and Wilson Avenues since those blocks include many small strip malls that are long overdue for a face lift. One of the ideas the Council seemed to support was the concept of creating a no Capital Expansion Fee zone, as was previously done for downtown Loveland.
Staff had already held discussions with commercial Realtors and developed a list of suggestions, including authorizing staff to allow deviations to site development standards when a change-in-use is proposed and economic incentives. One of the biggest problems identified by Realtors is the lot configuration of many parcels. They are too shallow to comply with commercial development standards. Staff did not offer any suggestions to solve this issue but noted developers could try and assemble multiple properties to allow for a larger footprint.
The discussion is far from over. It remains to be seen if the City can offer incentives enticing enough to encourage redevelopment of this area.
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